Reminiscence
by SomberRequiem
Summary: No matter who he was with, his mind always came back to memories of her. The doctors thoughts on Rose after Martha's departure and Donna's arrival. OneShot, implied 9 and 10Rose. my summary is not the best


**Ok, so I'm a little new to this, but I felt inspired to write this. Critique welcomed.**

**Disclaimer; I don't own Doctor Who. And no one would believe me even if I said I did. Sad face**

Time after time it had happened, no matter how much he said he did not need it. Always an uninvited change. And yet… despite how bad he felt as each new person came and went, sometimes he grew tired of being alone. He could not claim that it was human nature which made him yearn for company, for he was a higher being than that. It all came down to the basic instincts of every living organism. Sometimes, he just needed a companion. Someone to chatter amiably to, someone to share the things that he saw with, someone to laugh and dance with, someone to save, someone to impress.

After _her_ though, he was so shaken up that he did not know how. He did not know how or who to ask, because he knew he would be asking too much of whichever poor human he spoke to. Really, how could you communicate to any human the responsibilities they would accept when stepping foot on his ship? How did you adequately prepare someone to be a proper companion to the Doctor? How did you ask someone to follow you into deadly situations day after day? To put up with your arrogance, your upfront-and-in-your-face attitude?

It almost came down to how did you ask a person to love you. Because in all reality, that was what sticking with the Doctor took. If you felt anything short of love towards him, you wouldn't be able to stay more than one trip in the TARDIS with him.

He had been lonely since _her_. It was not as though he had not tried to find a good companion, because he did try. There was the medical student, Martha. She was… well, she was a quick-witted woman. She made a wonderful friend, but she chose to return back to Earth, to pick up where she had left off on her life. And the Doctor couldn't blame her, he had put her through more trouble than any human could have been through on their own. He even took on a new, nagging, chatty companion named Donna. A firey woman, quick to speak and act. Nearly as talkitave as him too, a quality he didn't know any human could possess.

There was a companion for each time he gave into his feelings of loneliness, his desperation for company. Even when he believed himself set to continue out his days alone, someone would come. And each time allowed some lie form to travel with him, he felt remorseful as if taking in a new face would blur her memory. And that was the furthest thing away from what he wanted.

With Rose... she started out as a random shop girl, and on a whim, he took her on his adventures, and she just sort of grew on him. She was the first person to be able to bring a smile to his face after the timelords, and her cheery disposition was quite contagious, even when the Doctor in his 9th regeneration was in one of his stingy moods.

After her, he did not know what to expect from a companion. The only thing he was sure of was that no one could ever meet his standards as a companion when he compared them to Rose. She did what he had reguarded as impossible after the mess he lived through and witnessed and did. _She_ had made her way into his heart, _she_ became the "ape" that gave him the reason to keep going, to keep playing his eternal role of "savior" throughout the galaxies.

Sometimes he felt that the new companions were pathetic attempts to replace her. But none of those humans could stand up to his memory of _her_. After all, you can't compete with perfection.And she was unique, her soul and companionship like a pinprick of light in the darkness of the 900-some years in his life.

None could ever measure up to _His_ Rose. Yes, _his_. _His_ Rose was the phrase always associated with her. He felt no regret for these possessive thoughts either. Because for one, she was beyond his reach, stranded in another dimension, but also because it was all he had left of her.

So what if her room and her possessions were still as they were the moment of her last departure? And so what if his astute timelord mind could recall any of the memories of being around her? He still had nothing.

No longer did he have his blonde-haired, brown eye-d angel. No longer did he have her sweet laughter and her sly comments. No longer did he have the warmth of another body under the covers or the lingering smell of her lavender and jasmine body spray. He didn't have the pleasure of hearing her human heart beating next to him, or of her warm fingers laced between his own. He didn't even have the arguments over nothing or the nearly unbearable stubbornness.

For himself, he had her name, and the ghost of her memory.

And yet she still had his two hearts.

What kind of trade was that?


End file.
